Many quick-service restaurants include vehicular drive-thru service that allows drive-thru customers to place, pay for and receive delivery of a food order from a vehicular drive-thru lane, all without the drive-thru customers needing to leave their vehicles. Typically, the drive-thru lane includes an order station along the drive-thru lane that may be located remote of the restaurant building. At the order station a customer places an order by communicating with an attendant, such as by microphone and speaker. The attendant is positioned within the restaurant at a payment window that is located along the drive-thru lane and remote from the order station. Typically, as the order is received by the attendant, the attendant enters the order in point-of-sale equipment, such as an electronic cash register. After placing an order, the customer drives downstream to the payment window and pays the attendant for the order. The customer then is directed to a downstream pick-up window in the building to receive the customer's order from another attendant within the building.
Occasionally, the staff of the facility is not able to prepare a customer's order and have it ready for delivery by the time the customer has progressed to the order pick-up window or within a relatively short time thereafter. During the time the delivery of the order is delayed, the vehicle waits adjacent the order pick-up window. With the vehicle having the delayed order parked at the pick-up window, the continued servicing of upstream vehicles is hindered since continued access to the pick-up window is no longer possible for upstream vehicles. This is particularly significant if the order from the vehicle waiting at the order pick-up window is delayed for a relatively long period of time, such as on the order or one, two, three or more minutes. A further complication arises when upstream vehicles queue behind the parked vehicle at the pick-up window, and the queue eventually extends back to the payment window. In this case, the vehicle parked at the payment window is blocked from moving forward to allow further servicing of upstream vehicles at the payment window. Furthermore, orders for upstream vehicles may be ready for pick-up, but cannot be picked up because of the downstream vehicle at the order pick-up window that is waiting for its order. A still further complication arises if the queue of vehicles in the drive-thru lane extends upstream to the order station. When this happens, a vehicle that has completed ordering is likewise blocked from pulling forward from the order station. Vehicles upstream from the order station then cannot access the order station to place their order. Thus, the occurrence of delayed orders can seriously affect the services provided in the drive-thru system by reducing the throughput of the drive-thru system.
Such delayed orders are likely to cause the most serious problem during periods when the volume of vehicular use of the drive-thru system is greatest, i.e., breakfast, lunch and dinner time and other periods experiencing high arrival rates. In addition to negatively impacting the throughput of the drive-thru system, when a customer experiences longer than expected drive-thru service time, the customer becomes dissatisfied and is less likely to return to the facility in the future. Additionally, if a customer sees a drive-thru system that appears to have a long line or that appears to be backed up, such customer may equate that condition with a relatively long wait based on past experience and thus may choose to leave the premises without ordering, and then seek service from a competitor.
A need exists for a drive-thru ordering and delivery system with a higher vehicle throughput to allow a greater number of food orders to be received, processed and delivered per hour.
A need exists for a drive-thru ordering and delivery system that minimizes the effect of delayed orders on the system.
A need exists for a quick-service restaurant facility that provides greater throughput of drive-thru customers without additional exterior space requirements for the facility.
A need also exists for a quick-service restaurant lot layout with improved safety for pedestrian traffic for non-drive-thru customers.